Marc Jacobs would like to marry Lorenzo Martone, if the latter will have him. [The Cut]  

Karl Lagerfeld has released a Chanel bag based on the house’s quilted 2.55 classic released in the '90s and celebrities like Katie Holmes, Milla Jovovich and Lily Allen are already wearing it. [WWD]

More retail spaces are becoming available downtown. [NYO]

While Style.com's fashion director Candy Pratts Price will not urge you to get a Rolex for $64,000, she thinks everyone should continue shopping. [NYO]

How did the story of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State appointee begin? John Koblin traces the story as it made its way from NBC's Andrea Mitchell to every other media outlet imaginable. "It has unspooled in a confusing way," Politico reporter Ben Smith says.

Leon Neyfakh meets Carrie Kania, the publisher at Harper Perennial, "the small but proud paperback unit of HarperCollins that she has lovingly presided over since the fall of 2005."

Plus: Candy Pratts Price... Big Shake-Up at New York Tech Meetup... Malcolm Gladwell.

“I’m so happy that people came out,” said Ms. Pratts Price in her trademark throaty voice as dermatologist and socialite Lisa Airan waited expectantly to greet her. “It’s not all doom and gloom. We got what we wanted—a new regime!”

She was speaking of the president-elect, for whom she’d shilled in several of her popular animated stream-of-consciousness video-blogs, or CandyCasts.

Designer Zac Posen arrived in a black suit and lined up for a scream and hug before stepping aside to chat with Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her son Charlie Shaffer.

“It’s serious, my love for Candy,” said Mr. Posen. “There’s exuberance, and joy … it’s fierce. The moment I met her she was in my life, and a joy and a good friend and supporter.”

“She’s an icon,” said Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa, fighting to the back of the restaurant for a copy of Accessories, which was commissioned by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). “She has this love of fashion and that’s so apropos, it’s so right for right now, to have Candy be celebrated. Because we really need excitement that’s genuine and loving for fashion! Especially now with the whole economy and everybody being so shaky.

“And her blog is amazing!” he said. “I love it.”

CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg was perched on a nearby table with legs folded under her in vaguely pinup fashion, running her hands through her hair. “Well, first of all I have known Candy for 30 years,” she said. “And she’s always on the cutting edge. And she’s very … how can I say? She’s very much hip and this, and then you have the other Candy, who’s a great cook, who has a wonderful husband. She’s a real mensch.”

Ms. Pratts Price, 58, was born Candida Rosa Theresa Pratts to Puerto Rican parents in Washington Heights; she attended Catholic school and then the Fashion Institute of Technology. A well-known accessories editor at Vogue early in Ms. Wintour’s tenure at the magazine and a onetime creative director at Ralph Lauren, she was rehired by Ms. Wintour in 2001 to head Style.com’s fashion coverage. “She embraces talent, she disciplines talent,” Ms. Pratts Price enthused, speaking by phone the morning after her book party from her 58^th Street apartment, which she shares with her husband of 28 years, artist Chuck Price, and their white-haired fox terrier (the couple also have a home in Watermill). “You can run in there with an idea and she allows it to grow or she can just tell you how to corral it.”

The site is one of CondéNet’s few success stories, with 2,152,092 unique visitors and 140,978,531 page views in October. Over the summer, Ms. Pratts Price was awarded the CFDA’s Eugenia Sheppard Award for excellence in journalism; the presentation featured a video of Kate Moss doing a throaty Candy impression, enthusing about Hermès.

Of course, these are hardly boom times in media. “I think there’s a major panic over what’s going on,” said Ms. Pratts Price. “And it’s not going to be easy to fix. But you can’t stop doing what you’re doing, because when it comes back, you’ll be gone. You gotta keep your brand awareness, and try to make it work during this doom and gloom.”

Ms. Pratts Price has some ideas of how her site can stay relevant in the changing advertising and consumer climate. “I’m a big fan of a crawl—you know what a crawl is?” she said. “On television? I’ve been trying to put a crawl in at Style, to break things like ‘10 miniskirts down Fifth Avenue; could this be a trend?’ I would love to have a crawl. ‘Breaking news: Hats are back!’

“Of course, that’s technology, that costs money to build,” she conceded. “So I have to ask Mr. Newhouse to expand the budget, and I don’t think it’s a good time to do that.”

She pointed out that Style.com has weathered hard times before in its short life: “After 9/11”—which happened in the middle of Fashion Week—“we were there for the industry, because we were able to deliver the pictures. We also saved a lot of the designers when they couldn’t show.”

And now? “We’re not making a concerted effort to like say get a rose-colored Rolex for $64,000,” she said. “But we still believe that somewhere, somehow, you have to keep the enchantment of desire and want and luxury, you know? You just can’t say ‘Stop shopping.’”

mbryan@observer.com

Take her speech at the 1998 VH1- Vogue Fashion Awards where Donatella Versace and Sting presented her with the Gianni Versace Personal Style Award. She was dressed in a sari and was barefoot. "Gianni Versace was a great man and a great talent, and it's an honor to receive this award in his name. Especially from two people I'm so very fond of."

She was hyper-enunciating. Until she came to the end. Then it almost sounded translated–like she said " vahhry fohnd ."

"If I hadn't known that she started out as an American, I would've said she was an English person who wanted to sound like an American and made it part of the way," said George Jochnowitz, a professor of linguistics at City University's College of Staten Island, when asked to explain the Material Girl's dialect.

Some have taken to calling it mid-Atlantic English, by which they don't mean the language of Pennsylvania. "It's like you've spent so much time on the Concorde you're all caught up in the middle," explained Hannah Lawrence, director of public relations at Helmut Lang who really is from London. Picture Gwyneth Paltrow over international waters–with Emma , Sliding Doors, Shakespeare in Love and countless cover photo shoots behind her–not exactly sure how to pronounce the word "really."

As far as anyone can tell, the Concorde accent was picked up on the faah-shion show circuit and brought to America. It has quickly spread through the mastheads of the fashion books–where in the lower ranks they're trying to make you think they went straight from Vassar to Vogue via a year abroad in Venice–and beyond. Very Institut Le Rosey.

It says, "I'm interesting–or at least you're not sure that I'm not." And it's fun. With her Audrey Hepburn affectation–part leftovers from being cast British, part proof that she's a serious actress–Ms. Paltrow never shows up out of character. With Madonna's dialect from nowhere–part imitating the Italians who dress her, part " I can act !"–she gets some kind of mysterious-woman-without-a-language mystique.

It's Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn cross-pollinated with double-cheek-kissing Ingrid Bergman. It's ending sentences with an innocent little Italian " no? " Or using words like " shall " and " quite " and giving them a rhythm.

"It's probably because of the way I was brought up," lilted freelance fashion consultant Polly Mellen–who is always being told she sounds somewhat British. "Probably because I always went to private school and had a really, sort of, very, how can I say it, priv-i-leged education and life. I was really sort of packed in cotton."

Candy Pratts Price, creative director of the 1999 VH1- Vogue Fashion Awards, said her biggest offense is saying " taahsel " instead of "tassel." "I didn't go to public school, you know," she said.

Some claim it's an accident. "Every now and then I'll catch myself," admitted Lee Carter, editor of Hint , an on-line fashion magazine. "Like one time I said ' claahhs ,' when I meant to say 'class.' And I was like, 'Oh no!' It just happened. It was definitely not conscious. I was like, that's so fake and phony, I've got to stop doing this! I think it has to do with wanting to sound professional."

But it always sounds affected. "It's certainly not the case that most people beyond teenage automatically shift their English very fast if they go to another area," said Bill Stewart, a professor of linguistics at City University. "They would have to make a conscious effort to do so. And they would often not get it right."

"You can tell when it's put on because people think it's chi-chi," said Ms. Mellon. "I mean, there's a woman in a very, very big, big job, and she never used to talk like that . That's easy to spot, and that's usually younger people who are learning."

Sam Chwat, director of New York Speech Improvement Services, usually works with actors preparing for a role. But nowadays, he said, some of his clients are just preparing for their roles in life. "There's snob appeal … Since this whole Madonna thing started, we've had a few more clients looking for British accents. We try and warn people if they're American and adopting British accents, it's going to sound phony. And they're going to be found out."

Nonetheless, the clients know what they want. "I had a client who was a man in his 50's, a c.e.o. in the fashion industry," said Mr. Chwat, "and he had a very, very strong New York accent which he felt was an industry joke, that here he was, Armani-clad and otherwise elegant and powerful, and his speech was belying his image: He had an Italian-based, Tony Danza-type accent. Now if you met this guy, you would swear that he was vaguely continental. That he did not go to school in this country."

In other words, he just sounds sort of expensively confused. It's the occasional–but not uniform–" cahn't " instead of " can't ," or " rilly " instead of " really ." But it's there. It's a softening of vowels, it's keeping T's as pinpointed little T's instead of allowing them to morph into thudding D's. "One of the most consistent differences between British and American speech is what you do with a T in between two vowels," said Mr. Jochnowitz. "Like 'nom-i-na-ted.' Most Americans use a sound that's closer to 'D.'"

According to Mr. Jochnowitz, Americans trying to sound British tend to first soften their A sounds into "ah" sounds, and then drop their R's. "People in fashion have to speak about their product all the time," he said, as he watched a tape of Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley commentating on last summer's couture collections in Paris. Mr. Talley was speaking loudly and clearly. Each word was distinct. He rarely pronounced the letter R, "again" was "a-gain." " Sweat-ah ," " trouse-ah ." And his voice rose up and down like a song or a chant.

"He starts with an R-less dialect," the professor explained. "Which sounds like part of a native Southern accent. [Mr. Talley is, in fact, from the South.] The fact that he's R-less but doesn't sound like a Southerner is what gives the suggestion that he's British. He also speaks very precisely, which is, I guess, a professional thing, but has a British association, whereas we think of Southerners as being somewhat relaxed. But fashion people are always describing, making a point. You have the necessity to be clear in order to make your point. And that might explain why you would make sure you have all your differences in pitch, and why you keep all your consonants."

In the travel-heavy fashion industry, it's easily explained away time and again: "After traveling different places, especially when you go to London and you're in that environment and you're around fashion in that area, you definitely pick up words and things like that," said April Hughes, an editor at Elle . "And living in New York, you pick up a little from everything. It's an influence from old-school fashionistas like Diana Vreeland, it's what designers are saying this season–like Michael Kors is saying 'Palm Bitch,' so suddenly you're into that. And it's an influence that's definitely European. Mostly British."

Once the accent and rhythms are down, the fashion lexicon becomes very important. "At one time, certainly, French words had cachet," said Old Navy spokesman Carrie Donovan, whose voice warbles up high like a schoolteacher. Provided that school is Brearley and the year is 1949. "Like something having chien meant something." Ms. Donovan's voice turned wistful. (F.Y.I.: It means it was chic.) "But I think that phase is sort of gone."

Right now, it's pretty much unanimous that–unless you're ordering coffee or being sort of ironic –foreign phrases are out. But "genius" and "brilliant" don't seem to be budging in popularity. The royal 'we' is an important part of the dialect. "It's, you know, 'We're loving pink this year.' I think it's gracious. You don't come back as a reporter and say, 'I saw pink.' It means Vogue says stilettos, not Missy so-and-so says stilettos. Vogue did, and that's a bible," said Ms. Price.

Also important is the nearly constant use of the present progressive tense. " It's working ," " I'm loving it ." "It's a dance," said Ms. Price, "and it's not finished until you're finished saying it."

"It shows that it's more immediate," explained Mr. Jochnowitz. "Not simply that it works all the time, but it works at this very minute."

Elizabeth Saltzman, the fashion director of Vanity Fair , favors word shortening. " Gorge " instead of "gorgeous," "faboo " for "fabulous." She also likes " flawless ." The collection? " Flawless ." Michael Kors? " Flawless ." Tom Ford? "Looks–and is –flawless." Which leads to another of Ms. Saltzman's favorites–" Full Gooch ," which means head-to-toe Gucci.

Ms. Mellen worries about precision, about the most efficacious way to use words in such a visual profession, which is, Mr. Jochnowitz explained, one likely explanation for a tendency toward a more European accent. "[In fashion people] you have more marked variations in pitch. Americans have a tendency to skip consonants, jump right over them, hardly pronounce them. Maybe people in fashion have to speak about their product all the time, and you have the necessity to be clear in order to make your point. Which would explain differences in pitch."

"I think that when I was younger I used too many adjectives," said Ms. Mellen, who is told she's not shy about the word " divine ." "I saw Annie Leibovitz today, for instance, and I wanted to express to her what I felt about her book [ Women ], and I didn't use flowery language. I tried to use words that she would understand and might mean something to her, as she's a very intelligent and visual person."

"Maybe that has a lot to do with being creative," offered Ms. Lawrence, who happens to think Madonna just sounds American. "That's why we're in the fashion industry: because we're creative. And maybe the creative qualities that one has might mean a tendency toward a more musical ear. Especially in somebody like Madonna. She's so talented creatively and musically. And probably her ear is very, very sensitive to sounds and pitches."

And the fashion industry–with its British editors such as Anna Wintour; Grace Coddington; the Sykes sisters, Plum and Lucy; Liz Tilberis; Gabé Doppelt and too many publicists to name–has always had a little accent fetish. "I always think it sounds really nice," said Mr. Carter, "but I also know that a lot of British people are hired because of their accents, and that's the first thing I think of. I'm always like, 'I wonder if this person knows what she's doing or she was just hired because of her accent.' Because I've heard that from so many people. Especially in p.r. Because it just sounds better. Like they can get their way more often."

But people noticed Candy Pratts Price in the noonday sun on Sept. 22. Towering in ankle-high black suede Manolo Blahnik boots, a black cashmere sweater and skirt by Hussein Chalayan for TSE, and a black denim and silver Kelly bag made especially for her by her friends at Hermès–inscribed "Candida" on the bottom–Ms. Price waited outside the Viacom building at 1515 Broadway. Purring into the handset of her Omnipoint World Phone–and sounding not unlike Diana Vreeland channeling the impresario Mike Todd–she was talking not about the latest John Galliano frock but about the riggers from Las Vegas who wired the flying act at Alexander McQueen's New York fashion show on Sept. 16.

After nearly a decade as Vogue 's high-profile accessories director, Ms. Price's new title is creative director of the 1999 VH1- Vogue Fashion Awards, to be telecast live from the 27th Street Armory on Dec. 5. The job opened when Gabé Doppelt left VH1 to become editor at large at Talk magazine in January and VH1 officially joined forces with Vogue to produce the awards show.

"Didn't we always know we'd land up in a place like this?" laughed Ms. Price. Unlike many at Condé Nast, who can't quite get their vision around Times Square, Ms. Price is pleasantly astounded.

"Let's go to Sardi's for lunch" she suggested. "Sardi's needs a resurgence. Sardi's could be the new Four Seasons, especially if they took all the photographs of Broadway stars off the walls and replaced them with photographs of the media people in the neighborhood. But I suppose they'd have to do something about the food," she added. "Right now, aren't they famous only for their cheddar-cheese ball and Ritz crackers?"

Ms. Price made her way through the bustling crowd to the restaurant on West 44th Street. Sardi's is red and black, very red and black, but not Diana Vreeland red and black, at least not yet. We were shown to a tight corner table. The restaurant was packed. It was a matinee day. Would a great meow summon everyone to be on time for Cats ?

"Good God, what's that?" Ms. Price asked, looking over at a Crayola-bright concoction being consumed by a lady in a blue suit two tables south. "She's eating one of Karl's patisserie hats!" Once an accessories editor, always an accessories editor: Ms. Price was referring to Karl Lagerfeld's big hat moment about 15 years ago. The woman was actually eating a heap of cottage cheese dressed with fruit salad and a strawberry crown.

Ms. Price ordered cannelloni.

"John Sykes is a very cool boy," she said, describing her new boss, the president of VH1. The combined forces of Vogue and the music television network intend on a really big show. British artist Damien Hirst, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's current nemesis, is designing the award statue; Isaac Mizrahi is creating the set; and Robert Isabell is "creating the environment."

"I want The Ed Sullivan Show up there," Ms. Price exclaimed.

A spokesman for VH1 said that last year's fashion awards show, the network's fourth, had 4.9 million viewers–about 24 percent more than the year before. The show is also shown in reruns, which attract even more viewers. So many millions of viewers at the intersection of music and fashion appeal to market-savvy designers. It's great exposure, and it's free.

Among the 1999 nominees: The women's wear designer of the year contenders are Gucci, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren. Avant-garde designer of the year nominees are Antonio Berardi, Ann Demeulemeester, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen and Yohji Yamamoto. The most fashionable female artist nominees are Lauryn Hill, Jennifer Lopez, Courtney Love, Madonna and Gwen Stefani. Most fashionable male artist nominees are: Sean (Puffy) Combs, Lenny Kravitz, Ricky Martin, Mark McGrath and Will Smith. The nominees for "Visionary Video" are Fatboy Slim, Garbage, Lauryn Hill, Jamiroquai and Alanis Morissette. Female model of the year nominees are Carmen Kass, Maggie Rizer and Angela, Audrey and Gisele, who work without last names.

One might think television would be a departure for a fashion-magazine personality like Ms. Price. Not really. Her work always had an entertaining edge. Before Vogue and a stint as fashion director for Harper's Bazaar , Ms. Price was in charge of the windows at Bloomingdale's stores throughout the United States; her windows were such show-stoppers that Queen Elizabeth II asked to meet Ms. Price when she visited the department store in 1976.

Ms. Price grew up in uptown Manhattan and attended private Catholic schools and the Fashion Institute of Technology. After F.I.T., she worked at Bergdorf Goodman and Bachrach, the society photographers. Her big break came when the Charles Jourdan shoe salon opened on Fifth Avenue in the early 1970's. Ms. Price started as a saleswoman; "Eleven percent commission, plus wearing the shoes; I was in heaven," she said.

When the window-dresser quit, Ms. Price asked for the job. "They were reluctant. I told them, 'If these aren't the best show-stopping windows in New York, you can let me go.' Then I went straight to [the Museum of Modern Art], where they had a lending art service, and I borrowed paintings for the windows. That was only the beginning. We were a sensation."

Ms. Price is married to artist Chuck Price. Mr. Price's work is currently on view at Homer at 939 Madison Avenue, and his studio was the inspiration for the room designed by Richard Mishaan for the American Hospital of Paris' 1999 French Designer Show House at 34 East 69th Street.

The couple was married in Egypt 20 years ago. "At the American Embassy in Cairo," she said. "I was display director at Bloomingdale's, and I was working in Israel with three days off before I had to go back to Tel Aviv."

The bride and groom wore jodhpurs. "We went riding after the ceremony," she said, finding the cannelloni to her liking.

"My mother, when she was alive, always wanted to know why I looked so unattractive for my wedding," said Ms. Price. "We're Spanish. Where was the veil and the tulle?"'

Quiz time!

1. Who once said, "I'm not offended by all the dumb-blonde jokes, because I know I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde."

a. Donatella Versace.

b. Dolly Parton.

c. Marilyn Monroe.

2. What is Fogdog?

a. The on-line sporting goods dealer that will sell the Nike line

b. The name of the fictional narrator's fictional dog in Edmund Morris' memoir about Ronald Reagan.

c. According to Details magazine, "slang for male member limpness induced by too many Bud Lights."

3. Who is Jack O'Neill?

a. The name of the fictional narrator's fictional guy Friday in Edmund Morris' memoir about Ronald Reagan.

b. The lawyer hired by Damien Hirst to investigate if the artist has any legal recourse against mayoral censorship.

c. An inventor of the wet suit.

Answers: (1) b; (2) a; (3) c.